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Assessing and Addressing the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Crisis: Evidence from 1.5 Billion Sales Invoice

Zhuo Chen, Pengfei Li, Li Liao, Zhengwei Wang, Aug 31, 2022

We probe the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent containment policies on business activities in China by exploiting big data on 1.5 billion sales invoices. The average drop in sales was between 23% and 35%, depending on firm size, for the 12-week period after the Wuhan lockdown.

How Do Workers and Households Adjust to Robots?

Osea Giuntella, Yi Lu, Tianyi Wang, Apr 26, 2023

We analyze the effects of exposure to industrial robots on labor markets and household behaviors, exploring longitudinal household data from the China Family Panel Studies.

Anxiety or Pain? The Impact of Tariffs and Uncertainty on Chinese Firms in the Trade War

Felipe Benguria, Jaerim Choi, Deborah Swenson, Mingzhi Xu, Nov 04, 2020

We analyze the firm-level impacts of the US-China trade war since it is of great economic importance to understand how the unprecedented and dramatic increases in the import and export tariffs confronting Chinese firms affected the firm-level policy environment and firm operational outcomes. To contribute to this effort, we study how increases in US tariffs and Chinese retaliatory tariffs raised Chinese firms’ trade policy...

The Mandarin Model of Growth

Wei Xiong, Feb 13, 2019

The Mandarin model is defined by two key features of the Chinese economy. First, the government takes a central role in driving the economy through its active investment in infrastructure. Second, the agency problems between the central and local governments can lead to a rich set of phenomena in the Chinese economy--not only rapid economic growth propelled by the tournament among local governors, but also short-termist behaviors of local governors that directly affect China’s economic and financial stability.

Trends and Cycles in China’s Macroeconomy

Chun Chang, Kaiji Chen, Daniel F. Waggoner, Tao Zha, Jun 27, 2018

China’s spectacular growth over the 2000s has slowed since 2013. The driving force behind the country’s growth was investment, so the key to understanding the slowdown lies in understanding what sustained investment in the past. This column shows how a preferential credit policy promoting heavy industrialisation explains the trends and cycles in China’s macroeconomy over the past two decades. This policy was not without negative consequences, particularly in terms of the distortions it introduced for business finance. Going forward, China needs to focus on creating the right incentives for banks to make loans to small productive businesses.